Raytheon Clears Review For New GPS Control

 

Lockheed Martin concept

Sep 6, 2011 By Amy Butler aerospace daily and defense report

Raytheon has completed the action items that emerged from the U.S. Air Force’s preliminary design review of the next-generation GPS control segment.

The four-day review took place at the end of June, and the final action items were completed in late August, says Bob Canty, vice president to the so-called GPS OSX effort. “The design itself was assessed as architecturally and technically sound,” he says.

Raytheon’s $886 million contract includes development as well as delivery of control segment hardware at Schriever AFB, Colo., and Vandenberg AFB, Calif., and updates to 17 monitoring stations around the globe. Canty says that with the new control system, the goal is to reduce the sustainment cost by 27% initially and within three years boost those savings to 50% of the existing system.

Block I, including hardware for Schriever and Vandenberg and the monitoring stations, is set for October 2015; the fielding of Block II, which will include the L2C signals, is scheduled for a year later.

The Block I system also will be able to operate with the new M-Code signals on the GPS satellites.

About 66% of the initial software is developed, though not all is tested, Canty says.

While Raytheon develops the new control segment, Lockheed Martin is designing the new GPS III satellites. The Air Force crafted a bifurcated procurement strategy, intentionally splitting the ground control segment contract from the satellite portion. This has, thus far, had the intended effect of preventing the ground system coffers being raided to pay for satellite work, Canty says.